Jacquot and the Waterman (15 page)

They'd returned home later than usual, after drinks
with the mayor at the Miro opening at the Musee Cantini
on rue Grignan, and dinner at Aux Mets de Provence on
the Vieux Port with his daughter, Michelle, and her husband, Thomas. Which de Cotigny counted as something of
a triumph, the four of them sharing the same table, only
the second or third time they'd managed it. Michelle was
the very devil to pin down and had yet to be won over by
her American stepmother.

'She's too young, Papa,' Michelle had told him tartly the
afternoon he'd broken the news that he and Suzie were
getting married. A small ceremony at the Prefecture the
following week; he hoped his daughter would come. 'I
mean, she's only a couple of years older than me, you
know?'

'Six, to be precise,' de Cotigny had replied. 'And how
old exactly is Thomas?' he'd continued. He didn't need to
be told. Deputy editor of
Le Provençal,
vegetarian, environmentalist, all-round do-gooder and bore, Michelle's
husband Thomas Thenard was only a few years younger
than Hubert was. He'd given his daughter a look and she'd
flushed with annoyance.

'It's not the same at all, and you know it,' she'd snapped,
determined to have the last word as usual, marching from
the room and slamming the door smartly behind her. But a
week later she'd come to the wedding, and grudgingly
toasted the bride and groom. And though she'd kept a
certain distance since then, it seemed to de Cotigny that
recently his daughter's resolve was weakening.

Down to Suzie, of course. Suzie was the one who made
the calls, kept up a dialogue, refused to be snubbed. The
invitations to lunch or dinner, the boat, the picnics, the
villa, the little soirees she hosted. When she put her mind
to it, Suzie de Cotigny could charm the scales off a
rattlesnake.

Which was what Suzie was really good at, the talent
Hubert de Cotigny valued above all others in his young
wife. The way she played people, seduced them. Found
them out. Sensed what they wanted, sensed how to please
them. And, in so doing, pleased herself. The control she
enjoyed.

Which was how it had been with the two of them, right
from the start. The only woman he'd ever met who
understood what he wanted and found no fault with it,
made no judgement, happy to pander to his particular
requirements and draw her own pleasures from them. The
reason he'd pursued her. The reason he'd asked her to
become his wife.

They were two of a kind, Hubert had told her,
outsiders who liked the same things, albeit from different
. . .
perspectives. And she'd agreed, to the marriage,
and the . . . perspectives. Just so long as he never, ever,
laid a hand on her. That's what she'd said. She could
easily and happily accommodate the watching, she told
him, but she wouldn't tolerate the other. Those were her
terms and, being the gentleman, Hubert had given his
word - and kept it.

For which, he discovered, there were substantial
rewards. All he had to do was say that he was going to the
study, as he'd done this evening when they got home from
dinner, and he knew she'd happily oblige with a last
night-time swim. Or he'd specify his dressing room on the
first floor, next to their bedroom, where he'd watch on his
console as she prepared for bed or bath. What a show she
laid on.

But nothing compared to those other times when she
took the initiative. The young girls she found, the waifs
and strays. For him, and for her. Bringing someone home
he could watch her play with, someone he
could
lay a hand
on.

How well Suzie knew him, reflected Hubert de Cotigny,
feeling himself stir as she climbed from the pool and
positioned the lounger just so, only a few feet from his
study window, lying back and spreading her legs, her long,
slim fingers reaching down.

So veiy different from his first wife, Florence. Just as
pretty as Suzie but in no way as accommodating when it
came to satisfying his peculiar requirements. She'd
divorced him when Michelle went away to school, generous enough to cite irreconcilable differences but canny
enough to make it worth her while. She'd pretty nearly
cleaned him out.

Unlike Florence, there wasn't any question of Suzie
being in it for the money. Wealthy herself, she didn't need
a bean - about the only thing that comforted his redoubtable mother, Murielle de Cotigny, when Hubert
announced their engagement - a fact his mother had been
quick to grasp when she met Suzie's family at the wedding.
Murielle de Cotigny might not understand the attraction
between her son and his new wife, but she knew money
when she saw it. And the Delahaye family had a great deal
more of it than the de Cotignys.

Later, after Suzie left the terrace, de Cotigny stayed
where he was in the darkened study. It was close to eleven
and he was expecting a guest. He wondered if the man
would try to make a point by being late, just to prove
something.

De Cotigny sighed, levered himself from the chair
and went to his desk. He switched on the reading lamp
and selected a cigar from the humidor. He snipped the
end, lit a taper and drew in the first of the smoke,
rolling it round his mouth. Some things in life you can
rely on, he thought to himself, savouring the taste of his
cigar, closing his eyes for the last plaintive notes of the
Mozart.

And some things you can't.

De Cotigny glanced at his watch. Already a little after
eleven. Which irritated him. But not as much as the reason
behind this late-night visit.

All in all it had been a most regrettable lapse of
judgement. His, and Suzie's. Visiting diat girl she'd found,
being persuaded to play away from home. Skin white as
alabaster she had, hair black as night. But she was
common. Trash. Just a greedy little scrubber, with that
dreadful tattoo.

He should have known better. Now he did. Because
now it looked like someone was going to make him pay
the price for their endeavours.

I
t was not a face that Jacquot had been expecting. Out
of the past. Years back.

For a moment, sitting there in Molineux's glass-walled
kitchen-office, Jacquot was certain he must be mistaken. It
couldn't be. Not Doisneau. But in the puffy old face,
twisting round from the sinks in the tiled, steamy washroom off the main kitchen, Jacquot recognised the same
darting eyes from long ago, that hook of a nose, the high,
triangular, clown-like eyebrows. Doisneau. No question.
After all this time. Up to his elbows in a
plongeur's
yellow
rubber gloves. And trying to catch his attention.

Jacquot had never planned calling in at Molineux's. But
then, he hadn't planned any of the things he'd done in the
hours after dropping Gastal at Headquarters. It was just
that going back to his empty apartment was not a prospect
Jacquot relished. So he put it off, parked his car in rue
Thiars and did the rounds - a cold Guinness at
O'Sullivan's, another drink along the
quai
at Bar de la
Marine, before ducking down rue Neot for a steak at La Carnerie and some attentive mothering from Gassi, the
proprietors wife. Fifty dressed as thirty, Gassis smile was
as wide as her hips and her skirt as short as her breath.
Jacquot adored her; and she adored him right back.